Ahead of her time. Buffy Sainte-Marie: Carry It On does a very solid job at showing who this person was as a singer, songwriter, and activist. You also learn of the many wonderful thoughts and ideas where Buffy Sainte-Marie was way ahead of the rest of us.
Or as Buffy Sainte-Marie tells us, sometimes you have to "carry the medicine for a long time."
She was way ahead on opiods, writing a song called Cod'ine in 1964. Sainte-Marie had been diagnosed with a bronchial infection and was treated with codeine. Robbie Robertson describes in the documentary about how you can get pain reliever from the drugstore that has codeine in Canada.
Sainte-Marie was calling what happened to Indigenous people as a genocide decades before a lot of others weighed in on the topic.
She appeared in The Heritage episode of The Virginian in 1968. Sainte-Marie insisted that actual Indigenous people play the extras.
They say the strength of a songwriter is measured in how often others want to do a cover version of a song. The Universal Soldier became so popular than many (sadly) thought Donovan wrote the song. Until It's Time for You to Go was covered 157 times since its original release in 1965. Elvis Presley was a big fan of the latter song.
Sainte-Marie won an Academy Award for co-writing Up Where We Belong from An Officer and a Gentleman. During the time where she was blacklisted from having her songs on the radio, she became a frequent guest on Sesame Street. Sainte-Marie breastfed her son Cody on Sesame Street. She said it wasn't controversial then but would be now.
Later in her career, Sainte-Marie made music with computers, again ahead of her time.
We also learn about her activism. There is a teaching moment, as she points out, when someone in the crowd asks about the red dress hanging on stage. Sainte-Marie points out the dress represents the missing and murdered Indigenous girls and women.
Sainte-Marie was born on the Piapot 75 reserve in Qu'Appelle Valley, Saskatchewan to Cree parents. As part of the then government policy, she was taken as an infant and adopted by Americans in Wakefield, Massachusetts.
The documentary shows her in Yorkville in Toronto, playing the folk scene in Canada's largest city.
Some of the Canadians in the documentary include Robbie Robertson, Joni Mitchell, and George Stroumboulopoulos.
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My parents had Buffy Sainte-Marie records when I was a kid. I had no clue she was Canadian. The thought of her being Indigenous back then wasn't even a thought. They liked folk music and she was a significant artist in their collection. My father has been gone for 22 years and my mother has dementia. They would have loved to see a look at the life and career of Buffy Sainte-Marie.
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Sainte-Marie was in Rumble: The Indians Who Rocked the World, a Canadian documentary that has also aired on PBS. If this documentary makes you more curious, this other documentary will help satisfy some of that curiosity.
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Director Madison Thomas incorporates some reenactments in the film to show moments that weren't captured in the moment. Thomas has a lot of ground to cover. The documentary answers a lot of questions yet keeps the viewer curious to learn more, simply because a documentary, any documentary can only cover so much ground.
Whether you do or don't know much about Buffy Sainte-Marie, this documentary will teach you a lot.
The film premiered at the 2022 Toronto International Film Festival on September 8.
Buffy Sainte-Marie: Carry It On debuts tonight on PBS as part of the American Masters series. Check your local listings for the PBS station in your area and when the station will show the film. Canadians can watch PBS through cable or satellite as well as antenna in limited areas. The PBS version may be censored in some parts, depending on the station. The film is available in Canada on Crave.
video credit: Buffy Sainte-Marie: Carry It On/PBS
photo credit: Buffy Sainte-Marie: Carry It On
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